Obama also would like to continue to provide tax incentives worth $38 billion this year for small business and middle-income families to continue to stimulate spending and investment. He defended the government bailouts because they were necessary and proposed to use $30 billion in TARP paybacks to assist community banks providing loans to small businesses.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Obama Vows to Press Health Care, Act to Boost Economy
President Obama reiterates the same agenda from his campaign where his main focus is to increase employment. There has been upwards of 7 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession in 2007 and unemployment rates still remain high at 10% at the end of 2009.
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Obama says that his number one priority is creating jobs in 2010, and plans to achieve this goal through tax cuts as well as tax incentives worth over 38 billion dollars. However, in the same State of the Union address, Obama claims that decreasing the federal deficit and reforming health care are also his top priorities. These three goals seem to contradict one another. How, when increasing spending (due to health care reforms) and decreasing revenue (through tax cuts), can Obama claim that decreasing the deficit is a top priority?
ReplyDeleteObama addressed the issue of insurance company abuses, bringing premiums down, and providing affordable health coverage for small businesses and uninsured Americans. He also said that bringing down the deficit would have been his first priority, if it had not been for the state of our economy right now.
ReplyDelete“…Now, if we had taken office in ordinary times, I would have liked nothing more than to start bringing down the deficit. But we took office amid a crisis. And our efforts to prevent a second depression have added another $1 trillion to our national debt. That, too, is a fact...” (State of the Union address)
Obama wants to freeze government spending beginning in 2011. His plan is to invest government spending in only what is absolutely necessary and eliminate other programs that we can afford to sacrifice right now. Spending in national security, social security, Medicaid and Medicare would not be affected by this. His tax cut plans are intended to help working middle class families. He also has drawn the line by discontinuing tax cuts for oil companies, investment fund managers, and people earning more than $250,000 per year.